Editorial September 19, 1953 Issue

IDENTITY OR BODY

Richard J. Davis

The human being, before he learns of Christian Science, naturally associates his sense of existence with a physical body and a personal mind. He also entertains the belief that what he calls his life resides in this body. When he learns or is told that Christian Science declares the unreality of matter, his first and perhaps natural reaction may be: "Well, if there is no matter' and I have no material body, what am I? Have I no tangible existence? In just what way am I identified?"

While Christian Science teaches that all is Spirit and its infinite manifestation, it should be said that Christian Science neither wipes out nor destroys man's identity, or his distinct individuality. On the contrary, it gives him a scientific understanding of his permanent and ineradicable being.

In the first chapter of Genesis the fact of man's true spiritual identity has been presented, for we read that God created man in His own image. It follows logically that God being Spirit, Mind, His expression and exact image must be spiritual and divinely mental, since effect must be like cause. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (Gen. 1:27, 28). It may be noted here that the Scriptural account not only states that God, Mind, created man in His own image and according to His own nature—spiritual, perfect, and wholly good—but also declares that man as the divine image, or idea, shall be infinitely multiplied.

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